


Divide by Cucumber Error.  Please Reinstall Universe and Reboot.

by Kila9Nishika



Series: She was there all pink and gold and glittering [2]
Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett, Doctor Who
Genre: Amnesia, Death, Dimensional Travel, Discworld-canon bad language, End of Morporkian monarchy, Revolution of Ankh-Morpork, Starts out chaotic and confusing, Time Travel, then develops plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-15
Updated: 2015-07-15
Packaged: 2018-04-09 13:10:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4350041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kila9Nishika/pseuds/Kila9Nishika
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She woke.<br/>She was.<br/>Who was she?</p>
<p>A woman appears on the Discworld.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Divide by Cucumber Error.  Please Reinstall Universe and Reboot.

**Author's Note:**

> If you are looking for a comprehensible fic, this is not the place for you. If you are looking for confusing twists in temporal effects and Discworldian shenanigans, this is definitely the fic for you. Welcome to Chaos! (Aka, this is supposed to be confusing!)  
> Actually, this fic went and developed a plot while I wasn't looking, so if you ride out the chaos, there's actually a story inside.
> 
> Trigger Warnings in the End Notes

***

“Wen considered the nature of time and understood that the universe is, instant by instant, re-created anew. Therefore, he understood, there is, in truth, no Past, only a memory of the Past.”

\- Terry Pratchett, _Thief of Time_ , (New York, NY: HarperCollins _Publishers_ , 2001), 31. 

***

* * *

 

She woke.

She was.

The air was sweet, no matter when she was, still in this spot.

Time shuddered and shifted around her – spoke –

“You are…me.”

“I am you,” she agreed.  She sat up, and fixed herself firmly in a handful of moments.  _One_ moment, and she would be outside of all occurrences.  Rather, she stayed in a handful of moments, shifting easily in a predictable pattern that matched most beings on this world.

Here was _when_ she was, settled and coalesced into a single being.

But where was she?

A little cottage, two windows and a door and a bed, with an empty fireplace and warm dirt floors which grew out of a grassy meadow that sprawled unconsciously beside a river thick enough to walk on.  The river meandered across an oversized continent on a world shaped like a disc which sat on the shoulders of four elephants, which were standing on a turtle which swam through space into infinity.

_Really_.

So here was _when_ she was, and here was _where_ she was, but –

Who was she?

Tilting her head, she asked herself:

“I don’t suppose you know the way to the nearest library?”

And set off resolutely Rimwards, following the most solid river in existence.

* * *

 

***

“Real children don’t go hoppity-skip unless they are on drugs.”

\- Terry Pratchett, _Hogfather_ , (New York, NY: HarperCollins _Publishers_ , 1996), 22.

***

* * *

 

It is often the way of young boys to dare smaller boys to do frightening things, and then run off laughing as the poor children attempt to impress their bullying peers.

It comes as no surprise, of course, to acknowledge that the children of the great city of Ankh Morpork (that is to say, great in population and shady characters,) had devised innumerable ways to accomplish this.  There was the How-Far-Can- _You_ -Walk-On-The-Ankh game, (self-explanatory,) the Shout-“Short Little Bastards”-Into-The-Broken-Drum-And-Run game, (the Broken Drum being a pub highly favored by the Ankh Morporkian dwarves of the early Century of the Fruitbat,) the Nick-A-Piece-Of-Shiny-From-The-Gates-Of-The-Patrician’s-Palace game, (home of the only motivated guards in the city,) and the well-beloved all-time favorite: the Knock-On-A-Scary-Door-And-Run game.

This final one was a favorite of the Cockbill Street Roaring Lads, probably due to the fact that it had the least probability of fatality.  It was highly impractical to have future gangmates dying on you.

Even so, the Cockbill Street Roaring Lads had developed the Knock-On-A-Scary-Door-And-Run game to an art.

“First,” Z Biff (nobody dared call him Zephaniah) explained, his eyes shining, “y’ gotta get from ‘ere to th’ Unseen University wivvout bein’ stopped by any ovver gangs.”  He slapped the smaller boy beside him on the back – just hard enough to make the smaller boy stumble.  “Ain’t it right, Grens?”

Grens, whose mother had named him Albright Grenville, nodded eagerly circling so that he was on the small boy’s other side.  “T’at’s right,” he agreed.  “Ain’t t’at right, Barrs?”

Barrs, a hulking boy who regularly left onlookers behind with bruised shins, opened his mouth slowly.  “Ah, th-at’s right,” he slurred, spitting a large globule of saliva on the nervous boy cowering in Biff’s ‘embrace.’  “A-ain’t th-”

“Shut up.”  Biff raised a hand.  “You’re acting like trolls, all, ‘yeah, der, yeah.’  Shut up.”  He shook his head, and lowered a smile onto his face.  “You lis’nin’, Vimesy?”

All nervousness left the boy’s face at the sneering nickname.  “I’m listenin’,” he declared, scowling.

“Good.”  Biff’s false smile was overtaken by a grin.  “At th’ Unseen U, you gotta get from there to the witch lady’s ‘ouse up the river.  At t’ouse, y’ gotta knock, count t’ firty, an’ run.”

Samuel Vimes, age eleven, didn’t pale at the complicated dare.  Instead, his eyes were glinting with fierce determination.

“Got it.”

* * *

 

***

“Within twelve hours of arriving, Ridcully had installed a pack of hunting dragons in the butler’s pantry, fired his dreadful crossbow at the ravens on the ancient Tower of Art, drunk a dozen bottles of red wine, and rolled off to bed at two in the morning singing a song with words in it that some of the older and more forgetful wizards had to look up.  And then he got up at five o’clock to go duck hunting down in the marshes on the estuary.  And came back complaining that there wasn’t a good trout fishin’ river for miles.  (You couldn’t fish on the river Ankh; you had to jump up and down on the hooks even to make them sink.)  And he ordered beer with his breakfast.  And told _jokes_.”

\- Terry Pratchett, _Moving Pictures_ , (New York, NY: HarperCollins _Publishers_ , 1990), 12.

***

* * *

 

  The office of the Archchancellor of the Unseen University was not one which had witnessed the slam of a door in many years.  In fact, Archchancellor Ridcully’s office had _never_ had its door slammed. (That is to say, for the entire time that the office belonged to Ridcully, it had not been slammed by people who were not Ridcully.  Before the Year of the Notional Serpent in the Century of the Fruitbat, [1985 by the University Calendar,] the office door had been slammed many, _many_ times.)

This is why, after six years of relative peace in his office when the door was shut, it is understandable that Mustrum Ridcully’s first reaction to the slam of his door from the ‘closed’ position into the ‘open’ position was to shoot his crossbow.

No witnesses could be availed upon to comment on the girlish shriek which rang out from the doorway of the Archchancellor’s office, but it took a whole class of students to figure out how to remove the bolt from the opposing wall without damaging the Dean’s particularly nice wizard’s hat.

“Archchancellor!” gasped the Dean, clutching at his head in a way which implied he feared its removal.  “There’s a – you must – the Library!”

“Dean!” exclaimed Ridcully, dropping his crossbow and striding around his desk.  “I see you have taken up running!”

Taking up running was, in fact, the furthest thing from the Dean’s mind at the very moment. 

“I have _not_!” gasped the Dean, now clutching at his chest.  “Archchancellor, you must come to the Library at _once!_ ”

Ridcully’s brows took a nosedive, implying the growth of a large thunderhead.  “If there is a problem in the Library,” he boomed, “I am sure that the Librarian knows exactly what’s what!”

The Dean nodded, and then shook his head.  “The Librarian _didn’t see anything wrong!_ ”

“Then maybe there isn’t anything wrong!”

The Dean continued to shake his head wildly.  “There is…there is…Archchancellor, there is a _woman_ in the Library!”

Ridcully, to the Dean’s great disappointment, looked intrigued rather than upset.

“Really,” Ridcully mused, stepping into the hallway and striding towards the Library, (or rather, where the Library had been two days previous – the rooms in the Unseen University had a tendency to move around,) “Now this, I must see.”

* * *

 

***

“Time was something that largely happened to other people; he viewed it in the same way that people on the shore viewed the sea. It was big and it was out there, and sometimes it was an invigorating thing to dip a toe into, but you couldn't live in it all the time.”

\- Terry Pratchett, _Thief of Time_ , (New York, NY: HarperCollins _Publishers_ , 2001), 48-9.

***

* * *

 

There was a knock on the door.

She sat down to read the book she had borrowed – _Confuzzling Tenses and Untymelie Fenomena_.  The Librarian had been quite kind, and had seemed perfectly understanding about her need to borrow the book.  (This, unbeknownst to her, was quite unusual.  One was _not_ permitted to remove books from the Library of the Unseen University.)

There was a knock on the door.

She set down her book, made a kettle of tea, grabbed a banana, and returned to her newly-grown sofa.

There was a knock on the door.

She answered the door.  A small boy stared up at her, and ran off.

She answered the door.  An orang-utan grinned amiably up at her.

She answered the door.  A neatly-dressed woman with white and black hair in a tight bun frowned at her.

“Where, or perhaps _when_ ,” demanded the well-dressed woman, “is your son?”

“Lobsang is in Ankh Morpork, Century of the Woodchuck, Year of the Infernal Goat.”  She blinked.  “Do I know you?”

“My name is Susan Sto-Helit,” the woman stated, her eyes sharp.  “Lobsang is your son, and my fiancé.”

“The son of another aspect of - well, me. The me that actually belongs here.”

Susan’s frown deepened.  “Tell that to the man running around with your eyes and chin.”

She shrugged.  “Yes, well, the less stable version. The one who will still be here when I've moved on.  The one who was here before I came.”

“Who is technically still you,” Susan reminded her, shifting slightly in the doorway.

“Yes, well, dimensional travel is a headache-inducing mess. Tea?”

“No, thank you,” Susan responded, striding out of the room.  “I have a fiancé to track down.”

She held out a banana.  “Tea?” 

The orang-utan took the banana, and nodded.  “Oook.”

She smiled.  “It’s a fascinating book,” she agreed.  “I’m most thankful that you allowed me to borrow it, Librarian.”

“Oook.”

She sat down on her sofa.  “I don’t suppose you have any other books that could help me?”

The Librarian shook his head, tossing her his empty banana peel.  “Oook.”

“And I can’t use L-Space to get home?”

“Oook.”

She sighed.  “That’s what I thought.  Another cup of tea?”

“Oook.”

She stood up.  “Alright then, if you _have_ to get back.  Here’s the book, by the way.  I needn’t keep it now, since I’ve finished it.”

The Librarian took _Confuzzling Tenses and Untymelie Fenomena_ , grinned at her, and bounded out the door.

She shut the door, closed her eyes for a moment, and put away the tea.

She sat down on her sofa, and finally began to read.

_Confuzzling Tenses and Untymelie Fenomena, by Purdie Lorst._

* * *

 

***

“There was a man who devoted himself to the study of time so wholeheartedly that, for him, Time became real.  He learned the ways of time and Time noticed him… There was something there like love.”

\- Terry Pratchett, _Thief of Time_ , (New York, NY: HarperCollins _Publishers_ , 2001), 208.

***

* * *

 

Sometimes, she cared.

Those were the confusing times.  Times when she worried about people, about this world, about everything.

There was someone she loved.  Someone.  In this universe, he was a monk, and his name was Wen.

But that wasn’t _her_ version of him.

There was another him. 

She had loved him.

She _did_ love him.

His name was –

His name was –

There was something very bitter about this, that she could remember neither her name, nor his.

Had he died?

She asked Death.

“Did he die?  The one I love-have loved-will always love?”

Death paused in the midst of moving one of his chess pieces.  NO.

“I mean the first one,” she elaborated.  “The one I’m moving towards.”

Death completed his move.  HE DID NOT DIE.  NOT IN THE WAY YOU MEAN.  CHECKMATE.

She wandered the streets of a nearby city, nostalgic as she listened to people complain and go about their daily business.  Her steps slowed to a stop outside of a large building, her eyes locked on the sign.

_GUILDE OF DOCTORS_ , it read, in deeply carved letters on silver-gilt. 

“Doctor,” she breathed, accidentally adding five years to the life of the horse waiting to her left.  “His name was the Doctor.”

“‘ey, missy!” someone shouted.  “Move it!  Yer ‘oldin’ up t’ ‘ole street!”

* * *

 

***

“A wise ruler thinks twice before directing violence against someone because he does not approve of what they say.”

\- Terry Pratchett, _Thud!_ , (New York, NY: HarperCollins _Publishers_ , 2005), 192.

***

* * *

 

“I don’t _like_ witches.”

“Now, your majesty, she isn’t a witch, she’s just a very smart woman.”  The Head Doctor of the Palace said tiredly.  “She came from very far away to help you –”

“If you want to help me,” King Lorenzo stated flatly, “You could have brought me someone nice to play with.  A young boy, perhaps.”

Behind the Head Doctor, the King’s Head Advisor winced.  It was becoming more and more difficult to hide the way mysteriously missing children ended up in the Palace before going missing for good.

Before the king could say another word, the Head Advisor raised his voice.  “Bring her in, soldier!”

The nearest guardsman nodded, and hurriedly guided a small woman into the king’s Royal Bedchamber.

Lorenzo took one look at the woman and scowled.  “You don’t look like a Klatchian witch to _me_.”

The Head Advisor and the Head Doctor both winced, but the woman simply smiled. 

“That is because I am not a Klatchian,” the woman said.  “I was just there to help King Rasum with his insomnia.”

“His mommy-what?”

The woman’s smile became a bit fixed.  “His trouble sleeping.  Now, I’m told that you are having trouble sleeping?”

The Head Doctor flicked a nervous glance at Lorenzo, and then nodded.  “His Majesty has been unable to sleep properly for three years.  His Majesty believes that there are people spying on him as he sleeps, but the Head of Palace Security has found nothing.  When the wizards could do nothing, and our doctors could do nothing, we sent for you, Madam.”

“Just call me Martha,” the woman said, her eyes distant.  “Now, is there any possibility that His Majesty may have _thoughts_ haunting him?”

“What does that mean?” Lorenzo demanded.  He was ignored.

“We checked for ghosts, Miss Martha,” the Head Doctor said respectfully.  “The Archchancellor found nothing.”

“And was duly punished for it,” sneered Lorenzo, sitting up in his bed.  “As you will be if you don’t shut up!”

The Head Doctor stepped backwards, his face pale.  “I – I am terribly sorry, Your Gracious Majesty.”

Lorenzo smiled.  “Now,” he said, “There is no need for you, _Miss_ Martha.  I am _sure_ that the Head Advisor can convince the Commander of the Watch to investigate just who it is that is spying on me.”

Martha bowed, and smiled fixedly.  “I am sure, Your Majesty.”

She left swiftly.  Hopefully, nobody would think to look up King Rasum of Klatch, recently overthrown (for cruelty and unreasonable executions), and replaced by his daughter, Roshana.

* * *

 

***

“Down in the Shades no one’s had any training in arms either…what they’re good at is a broken bottle in one hand and a length of four-by-two in the other and when you face ‘em, Ronnie, you know you aren’t going off for a laugh and a jolly drink afterward, ‘cos they want you dead.  They want to kill you, you see, Ron?  And by the time you’ve swung your nice shiny broadsword, they’ve carved their name and address on your stomach.  And that’s where I got my training in arms…well, fists and knees and teeth and elbows, mostly.”

\- Terry Pratchett, _Jingo_ , (New York, NY: HarperCollins _Publishers_ , 1997), 203.

***

* * *

 

“Yer sure y’ want _this_ house?”  Briscoe Satchel asked, staring at the neatly dressed woman.

The woman smiled, and handed over a small bag of coins.  “Just for the next two years or so, if that’s alright?”

Briscoe opened the bag, and then swiftly closed it.  Greed had replaced the doubt in his eyes.  “No problem, lady!  What’s yer name again?”

The woman seemed oblivious to the way his eyes were now eagerly looking at her two small trunks.  “Jacqueline Noble.”  She stepped into the house and headed up the stairs.

“Well,” breathed Briscoe.  “I’ll just…carry yer bags in…” he reached for the trunks.

Both little trunks sprouted hundreds of little legs, and skipped right past him, hurrying up the stairs.

Briscoe paled.  Swaying slightly on his feet, he hurried inside, slammed the door, and poured himself a large drink.

He was on his fifth drink when Jacqueline swept downstairs, looking as clean and neat as ever.  She was trailed by the two walking trunks.

Briscoe poured himself another drink, his terrified eyes locked on the trunks.  Jacqueline followed his gaze, and smiled. 

“They’re a gift from Seven Star River, the former Emperor of the Agatean Empire.”

Briscoe poured himself another drink.

Jacqueline fixed herself something edible (it didn’t look like anything _Briscoe_ had ever eaten) and returned upstairs, again followed by her walking trunks.

Briscoe continued to drink, and was finally feeling a bit less shaken (on his fifteenth drink) when there was a particular sort of knock at the door.

Everyone in Ankh Morpork knew _that_ knock.  It was the sort of knock that was immediately followed by a flat and slightly hoarse shout of:

“City Watch!  Open up!”

Briscoe poured himself another drink, and wobbled over to open the door.

* * *

 

***

“You’re not _doing_ it right.  If you’re going to arrest someone, you take charge right away.  You’ve got a badge and a weapon, yes?  And he’s got his hands up and a guilty conscience.  _Everyone’s_ got a guilty conscience.  So he’s wondering what you know and what you’re going to do, and what you do is fire off the questions, sharply.  You don’t make silly jokes, ‘cos that makes you too human, and you keep him off balance so he can’t quite think a clear sentence, and, above all, you _don’t let him move like this and grab your arm and pull it up so it almost breaks like this and grab your sword and hold it to your throat like this_.”

-   Terry Pratchett, _Night Watch_ , (New York, NY: HarperCollins _Publishers_ , 1997), 58-9.

***

* * *

 

“I’m told that you just rented the top floor off Briscoe Satchel.”

The pretty young woman seated in the interrogation room of Ankh Morpork’s City Watch seemed utterly at ease. 

“I did.”

The young woman’s interrogator scowled, and seated himself opposite her.  “Now, see,” he said, “I have a problem with that, because Satchel told me your name was Jacqueline Noble.”

“Sir,” murmured the young woman, nodding her head.

“But the Head of the Palace Guard just told me about you, Miss, and he identified you as Martha Prentice.”

The young woman looked up, her eyes sparkling.  “Do you know, I thought _someone_ would catch it before now,” she said.  She stuck out her hand.  “Martha Prentice is my traveling name, but I answer to either Martha or Jackie.”

“Your travel name,” the man said flatly, ignoring Jackie’s outstretched hand.

Jackie nodded.  “It’s easier to be someone different, when you’re far from home and there are people who might be unhappy with you.”

The Watchman’s craggy face creased.  “Martha Prentice…involved in the Klatchian affair last year?”

Jackie winced.  “I was just there to help with the King’s insomnia –”

“And the Agatean mess seven years ago?”

“I simply helped the Emperor with a few problems –”

The Watchman’s face bent into a faint smile – which was, it must be admitted, quite visibly _not_ his face’s most comfortable shape.  “You heard the rumors about the missing children, didn’t you?”

Jackie finally put down her hand, and stared fixedly at the wall behind the man, where someone had hung a placard reading _PROTEGO ET SERVIO_.  “I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said, in the voice of someone who knew _exactly_ what he was talking about.

“My name is _Suffer-Not-Injustice_ Vimes,” said the man.  “I’m Commander of the City Watch, and I think you _do_ know what I’m talking about.  The children who vanish off the streets, and the parents who vanish if they start kicking up a fuss.”

Jackie looked up at Commander Vimes.  “Sir?”

He waved a hand at her, and unlocked the door.  “Sign up with Constable Thorley upstairs, and I’ll make you an Undercover Watchman – Watchwoman – whatever.  Just give him _both_ of your names, and spell them out for him.  He can’t spell his own name properly, much less a name like Jacqueline.”

Jackie stood up.  “I would be most honored, Commander.  But – why?  I’m not a man, and I haven’t been in Ankh Morpork in ten years.”

Commander Vimes suddenly seemed to turn to stone, his face resembling the carved-like surfaces of a troll’s face. 

“Miss Noble,” he said harshly, “I have been walking the streets of this city for twenty-three years.  I have been working this case for eight of those years.  If you can break the case open, I wouldn’t care if you were a werewolf, much less a woman.”

Jackie stared at him for a moment, and then gave him a genuine smile.  It seemed to transform the young woman from an ordinary girl into a beautiful lady.

“Yes, sir.”

* * *

 

***

“The Luggage might be magical. It might be terrible. But in its enigmatic soul it was kin to every other piece of luggage throughout the multiverse, and preferred to spend its winters hibernating on top of a wardrobe.”

\- Terry Pratchett, _Sourcery_ , (New York, NY: HarperCollins _Publishers_ , 1988), 16.

***

* * *

 

“What is _that?_ ” demanded the Head Advisor, staring at the small trunk with hundreds of legs.  It followed Martha into the Royal Bedchamber, and settled itself beside the Royal Bed with a nearly soundless _thump_.

Martha blinked, and smiled.  “Oh,” she said, seating herself on a stool beside the Royal Bed.  “That’s just my Luggage.  A gift from the Agatean Emperor.  It carries my supplies.”

“Magic!” shrieked King Lorenzo, his pasty face turning ever whiter.  “Get rid of it!”

“It’s just a box, Your Majesty,” Martha soothed, honey-blonde wisps falling out of her bun and into her face.  “See?” 

Martha opened the box, ignoring the tension which immediately stiffened the spines of the Head Advisor, Head Doctor, and Head of the Palace Guard.  Inside were neatly folded linens, two small metallic boxes, and a notebook with a wrapped charcoal stick.  She tapped the smaller of the metallic boxes with a faint smile, and removed the notebook and charcoal.

”What was that?” snapped the Head of the Palace Guard.  “What is the little box?”

Martha smiled blandly up at him, and glanced at the little box, which had a tiny blinking light at the top.  “It’s a ghost-finder,” she explained.  “If, despite all the wizards might say, His Majesty _is_ being haunted by a ghost, the ghost-finder will catch it.”

The Head Advisor looked faintly worried, but all-in-all, everything Martha had done so far seemed benign.  She was, after all, someone who had traveled immense distances to do things just like thing – heal kings.

“So,” Martha said, tapping her charcoal to the notebook page.  “Starting from the beginning.  Has Your Majesty ever had difficulties after eating specific types of foods?  Anchovies, beef, calamari, cheese…?”

“Never,” declared Lorenzo, stuffing a large pastry into his mouth.  Crumbs began to spray with each word.  “I’ve never had any problem with food at all!”

Martha gave a slight smile which, to a more discerning eye, could be easily translated as _of course not, sir, except perhaps eating rather too much of it_.

Lorenzo had never been a particularly keen reader of people’s faces.

“Perhaps weather?” Martha barreled on.  “Have you ever had trouble when it was particularly rainy?  Or in the springtime?”

In the space of a moment too small to truly be tracked by the human eye, Martha _blurred_ , a faint golden glow appearing around her for a moment.  Nobody noticed.

Again, a more discerning eye might have noticed the sudden sweat on her brow, or the faint expression of nausea which crossed her face.

Again, Lorenzo had never been a particularly keen reader of people’s faces.

* * *

 

***

“Vimes maintained three trays: In, Out and Shake It All About; the last one was where he put everything he was too busy, angry, tired or bewildered to do anything about.”

\- Terry Pratchett, _Thud!_ , (New York, NY: HarperCollins _Publishers_ , 2005), 86.

***

* * *

 

“Ah, sir?  Commander?”

Commander Suffer-Not-Injustice Vimes, affectionately known as ‘Old Stoneface’ to his friends, family, and enemies, gratefully looked up from his work.  While he was growing increasingly desperate to catch whoever it was who was kidnapping and murdering hordes of children and their parents, rereading the painstakingly written case files was a masochistic decision. 

“Yes, Thorley?”

Constable Thorley looked vaguely confused.  “I know you said not to disturb you, sir, but there’s a lady at the door of the Watch House askin’ for you.  It’s raining like the upturned Ankh out there, and she gave me a Watch badge and said you’d want to talk to her –”

Commander Vimes stiffened at the mention of a Watch badge.  There was only one woman in the whole city who would be carrying a Watch badge _and_ who would have no doubts that he would want to see her.

“Bring her in,” Commander Vimes ordered.  “Up here, to my office.  And someone get her a cup of tea, too.”

Constable Thorley nodded, and backed out of the room.

“The good kind,” roared Commander Vimes.  “Not that dreck that we keep in the Commons!”

A moment later, Thorley could be heard to be roaring for someone to find some drinkable tea, which meant that it would be up to the office a few minutes after Jackie got in.

Sure enough, Jackie entered his office dripping wet, but holding a large tankard full of something steaming.  It smelled wrong to be tea, but it _was_ hot.  Close enough.

Commander Vimes was about to ask Jackie why she had turned up in the middle of the night, much less in the middle of one of the worst rainstorms Ank Morpork had ever seen, when he noticed her face.

Jackie was shaking, and not just from cold.  Her face was taut, the tight expression of a person keeping intense control of their every thought and action.  Her demonic trunks both bustled into the room, emanating worry.

“Here.”  Jackie leaned over, and pulled a sheaf of papers from one of her trunks.  They hit Commander Vimes’ desk with a _thump_.

The top page seemed to be a map of the Palace.

An overly thorough map of the Palace.  (There were plenty of maps of the Palace all over Ankh Morpork. You could buy them for a penny.  The difference was, these maps were usually missing large chunks, such as the dungeons and the King’s private chambers.)

“Your kidnapper is paid by the King.”  Jackie spat out each word, looking ill.  “Your murderer –” She choked off, but Commander Vimes wasn’t oblivious.  Right there, on the overly thorough map of the Palace, was a hidden staircase which led from the king’s bedroom to a hidden dungeon.

There was no other way into the dungeon, except through the king’s bedroom.

* * *

 

***

“Tiffany had seen a picture of Klatch in the Almanack. It showed a camel standing in a desert. She'd only found out what both those names were because her mother told her. And that was Klatch, a camel in a desert. She'd wondered if there wasn't a bit more to it, but it seemed that "Klatch = camel, desert" was all anyone knew.”

\- Terry Pratchett, _The Wee Free Men_ , (New York, NY: HarperCollins _Publishers_ , 2003) 15.

***

* * *

 

“Are you sure that you have to leave?”

Martha Prentice looked up from her two little trunks, and gave the Queen of Klatch a small smile.

“I ought not have come in the first place,” Martha said.  “I left in the middle of something rather large, and I’ll have to… _hurry_ if I’m to get back in time.  It’s just…”

Roshana knelt beside the strange woman who had become her best friend.  “You know that you can tell me anything,” she reminded Martha.  “You’re the only person I ever really trusted.”

Martha shut her eyes.  “I met a man.  An honorable man.  A man who will change the political climate of the Circle Sea, and who would do anything to make things right.  But…”  She trailed off, her eyes filled with an ancient sort of ache.

“But?” spurred on Roshana, after Martha’s silence had gone on for a bit too long. 

Martha sighed.  “I’m…not quite human.  You know that.”

Roshana nodded.  “So?”

“So his time is running out.  When I met him, he had less than six months left.  Such a great man, with only six months left of life!  I wanted to _do_ something!”

Roshana felt as if something warm had swirled through her body.  When she had first met Martha, Martha had been a distant woman who only cared about distant ideas.  It had only been once Roshana had revealed her father’s cruelties to the public that Martha had seemed to come to life, and even then, Martha had been a very strange person.  Sometimes, Martha would just _blur_ , and things would begin to act very strange.

Even so, Roshana treasured her few idle moments with Martha.  Martha had been the first person to ever truly talk to her, even if those words had been rather harsh.  Roshana had been panicking about what to do about her father, and Martha had slapped her across the face to get her attention.

“Didn’t you say that you are nearly as important as your father?  That the Palace Guards would listen to you?  _Do_ something for once, Your Highness, instead of lounging about waiting for someone _else_ to do it!”

Martha cared about big things, things that went beyond the power of individuals or mere mortals.  That Martha was here, worrying about one man…

“How much time does he have left?”

Martha sighed, and snapped one of her trunks shut.  “By the time I get back to Ankh Morpork?  Three weeks.”

Roshana refused to worry about the confusing math created by that declaration (Martha had been in Klatch for eight months).  “Then give him the happiest three weeks of his life.”

Martha stared into the distance for a moment, and then spluttered with indignation.

“Roshana!  He’s married!  And I don’t –”

“You don’t what?” challenged Roshana. 

Martha shook her head.  “That’s – that’s not the point!”

“Then what is the point?”  Roshana took Martha’s hand.  “Martha, you know when he is going to die.  Can you save him?”

A tear glinted in the corner of Martha’s left eye.  “No.”

Roshana tightened her grip on her friend’s hand.  “Then show him that you care, and that you care for his family, and do something he would appreciate once he is gone.”

Martha nodded slowly, the tear streaking down her face and swiftly followed by a few more.

Roshana stood up, and helped Martha to her feet. 

“And when it’s over,” Roshana said gently, “You can come back here, and I’ll make sure that you’re treated like the goddess that you are.”

Martha froze for a moment, and then shook her head.  “You asked a prophet, didn’t you.”

Roshana kissed her on both cheeks.  “I didn’t need to,” she murmured.  “There are four temples to Bad Wolf in Al-Khali already.”

* * *

 

***

“Can this be a reference to ‘Old Stoneface’ Vimes, who led the city’s Watch in a revolt against the rule of a tyrannical monarch in an effort to bring some freedom and justice to the place?  … And was he Commander of the Watch at the time? … Was he hanged and dismembered and buried in five graves?  And is he a distant ancestor of the current Commander?”

-  Terry Pratchett, _Jingo_ , (New York, NY: HarperCollins _Publishers_ , 1997), 23.

***

* * *

 

“I’m sorry.”

The graveyard was quiet.  The only living person there was cloaked in black and grey, her blonde hair lank in the breezeless air.

“I wish – I wish that I could have done _more_.  Your wife and son have been thrown out of your house, and the best I had to offer was that awful house that belonged to Satchel.  Bought the whole thing off of him, of course, but still.  It’s a hovel.”  She wiped her eyes and went on.  “I wish I could have helped, somehow.  That I could have stopped it, changed time, _somehow_.”

Staring at the still-fresh dirt beneath her feet, she took a deep breath.  The air around her was beginning to shimmer, and this was _not good_.  Splintering a fixed point, no matter how much she wanted to, would have devastating results on this reality.  She could _not_ lose control –

“I knew as soon as I met you, of course.  That you were a good man, and honest man, and a man who was devoted to making things level.  Someone who wanted the laws to make sense, and make it so that people were imprisoned for _reasons_ and someone who just _couldn’t bear to see a child-murdering pedophile go free!_ ”

The empty air echoed with the woman’s anguished cry.

“You would have _changed_ things, and made this place a different place, and perhaps a better place.  You wouldn’t have stood for the ridiculous system they’re putting into place now.  Some idiot who was knighted by Lorenzo just before he died seized all of your lands, and is using that power to get himself put in charge.  It’s basically rule-by-whoever-gets-there-first, with an added system of highly-priced assassins to _assist_ the nobles if the new ruler is annoying.  You’d never have stood for it.”

The woman once known as Martha Prentice, once known as Jacqueline Noble, now known as Sarah McCrimmon, gave a wet laugh that deeply resembled a sob. 

“I only wish there was something more that I could _do!_ ”

“Miz M’Crimmon?”

Sarah whirled around, startled.  Standing behind her, looking more than a little sheepish, was Commander Vimes’ son, Stand-Steadfast Vimes (who went by Stan).

“Sorry,” Stan said, staring resolutely at his shoes.  “Only, Mother asked me to find you.  She’s asked you to dinner, this last night, before you leave.”

Sarah wiped away a few stray tears.  “Am I so obvious?” she asked.

Stan shook his head.  “Oh, no, Miz, it’s just that you gave us your house, so Mother figured that you were leaving.  Also, you’ve seemed a bit broke-up over…Dad.”  He hesitated.  “Miz, was Dad a bad person?  Only, they killed him and kicked us out of our home, and they’re calling him king-killer.”

Sarah stiffened.  “No matter what people say,” she snapped, “Your father was _not_ a bad person.  He stood up for what was right and true, and executed a horrible murderer who just happened to be a king.  The only reason those greedy bastards kicked you out of your home and killed your father was because he threatened their nose-in-the-air lives of sneering leisure!  They were scared of him, Stan, and that’s why they killed him.”

Stan shrugged.  “I mean, I want to believe you, but, who’s going to know?  In three or five hundred years, all anyone’s going to know is that he killed that king of Ankh Morpork.”

“They won’t.”  Suddenly, Sarah sounded resolute.  “I swear to you, Stan, the Vimes name will not remain aligned with ‘king-killer.’  History _will_ remember your family as honorable, just, and true.”

* * *

 

***

“I know no one ever locked their houses down _our_ street… It was ‘cos the bastards even used to steal the locks!”

\- Terry Pratchett, _Jingo_ , (New York, NY: HarperCollins _Publishers_ , 1997), 193.

***

* * *

 

“Miss?  Miss, are you alright?”

There was a young woman kneeling in the middle of the street.  This perhaps wouldn’t be so odd, this being the middle of the Shades, if she had been robbed or mugged.  But she hadn’t been.  In fact, the young woman had been kneeling there for close to an hour, which was why someone had actually bothered to find a constable and drag them into the Shades.

“Miss?”

The woman stood, and looked around, rather dazed.  “Yes?” she said slowly.

“My name is Constable Fittly, Miss.”

The woman blinked at Fittly slowly.  “Yes?” she repeated.

“Well,” stuttered Fittly, wishing that he wasn’t currently partnered with Constable Mica (who was just standing there watching), “Are you alright?  We got some complaints about you blocking the road, and –”

“What year is it?” the woman demanded, standing up swiftly. 

Fittly stared.  “What?”

“What year is it?” the woman repeated, with the slow tone of voice reserved for speaking to idiots.  “Today’s date?”

“Iss da fourf of Grune,” Mica suddenly rumbled.  “Da Year of da Finkin’ Dingo.”

The woman nodded, and turned to stare at a house.  Fittly couldn’t see why, it looked like all of the other houses on the street – run-down and dirty.

“Miss,” Fittly persevered, “I’m going to need you to tell me your name, and pay the fine for traffic obstruction.”

The woman continued to stare at the house.

“Miss,” Fittly tried again.  “Miss, if you refuse to pay the fine, then we’ll have to take you to the Watch House.”

The woman turned slowly to stare at him again.  “That Watch,” she breathed.  “Sure, I’ll come to the Watch House with you.”

It took a good deal of effort for Fittly to restrain himself from staring.  Most people didn’t volunteer to commit themselves for a felony.

* * *

 

***

“REALITY IS NOT ALWAYS WHAT IT SEEMS.”

\- Terry Pratchett, _Mort_ , (New York, NY: HarperCollins _Publishers_ , 1987), 38.

***

* * *

 

“Will Roshana be alright?”

AND BY ALRIGHT YOU MEAN…

She sat, Jackie-Martha-Sarah, all of the names wrong.

“I mean, is she mostly happy?  I left her all alone.”

SHE LIVES TO BE SEVENTY-ONE YEARS OLD, HAS THREE CHILDREN, AND DIES OF PNEUMONIA.

“That’s…” she shut her eyes.  “For a Queen of Klatch, that’s a wonderful life.  And Seven Star River?”

MARRIES FIFTEEN WOMEN, HAS SEVENTEEN CONCUBINES, FORTY-SEVEN CHLDREN, AND DIES OF POISON AT THE AGE OF NINETY-THREE.

“Oh.”

I DO BELIEVE HIS WIFE POISONED HIM, THOUGH, WHICH SOME SAY IS QUITE NATURAL.

“Yes, well.”  She sighed.  “And Stoneface?  In the end?  I mean, he _said_ that he was ready, but it was – it was –”

SUFFER-NOT-INJUSTICE VIMES WENT QUITE PEACEFULLY.  ‘ALL FOR THE PEOPLE,’ HE SAID.  ‘EVEN TO DIE.’  HE BARELY FELT THE AXE.

She sat for a long moment in silence.

“Thank you,” she whispered, one defiant tear struggling free of her control.  “Thank you.”

* * *

 

***

“In the Fyres of Struggle let us bake New Men, who Will Notte heed the old lies.”

\- Terry Pratchett, _Feet of Clay_ , (New York, NY: HarperCollins _Publishers_ , 1996), 84.

***

* * *

 

Sam Vimes, Commander of the Watch, Duke of Ankh, etc., etc., etc., (as he would likely describe it,) stared at the woman sitting calmly in the Watch House. 

“According to witnesses,” Constable Fittly said nervously, “She appeared out of nowhere, and just sat there kneeling in the street for about an hour.  And, Commander, sir, _nobody robbed her_.”

Vimes scowled.  “Nobody robbed her?  In the _Shades?_ ”

“Nossir.”

“And she volunteered to come to the Watch House?”

“Yessir.”

“And now she’s asking to speak to me.”

“Yessir.”

“Well then.”  Vimes stood up, gleefully leaving behind his piles of (evil) paperwork.  “I’ll just have to go speak to her.”

At the precise moment that he said that, the woman stiffened, and smiled.

“And she can hear me,” Vimes noted.  “Fittly, is she a werewolf?”

“Sergeant Angua says no, sir.”

“And not a vampire either.”

“Sergeant Angua says no, sir.”

Vimes squinted.  “And the walking trunks just turned up?”

Fittly winced.  “Five minutes after we started walking here, sir.”

Vimes shrugged.  “They’re like that one belonging to that wizard, the rabid Luggage thing.”  He sighed.  “Right then.” 

Vimes stalked across the Watch Commons and sat down facing the strange woman.  “You wanted to speak with me, Miss?”

The woman brightened.  “Commander Vimes!” she exclaimed, her dark eyes shining oddly.  “Yes, I did.”

Vimes frowned.  “Can you give me your name?”

The woman winced.  “I…don’t know my name, Commander.  But I have to talk to you.  Well, give something to you.”

Vimes gave the woman a long stare.  She didn’t seem to notice.  Rather than wincing, (as all of the Watchmen and a good number of criminals did,) she simply turned and opened one of her little walking trunks.

Atop a pile of neatly folded linens were two small metal boxes, a ragged piece of cloth folded around something, and a slightly ragged book.  The woman carefully removed the cloth-wrapped something and the book.

“What are the boxes?” Vimes asked, determined to keep the woman talking.

The woman smoothed her hands over the ragged book.  “The one with the blinking light is a mapmaker,” she said.  “It works like an iconograph, but it just maps everything in the immediate vicinity, and I don’t need to hold it up.  The other one is just an iconograph in a box.”

Vimes’ frown deepened.  He had never seen an iconograph small enough to fit in a box that small, but…

“These are yours.”  The woman held out the book and the cloth-wrapped object.  “The book belonged to an ancestor of yours.”

Vimes carefully took the book and the cloth-wrapped object.  Setting the object on a nearby table, he opened the book.

_Thys Boke is thee Recorde of Days Beelonging to Suffer-Not-Injustice, Commander Vimes.  Protego et Servio._

Vimes nearly dropped the book.  “Where did you get this?” he demanded.

The woman smiled.  “You could tell people that you found it in the Library,” she said, with a note of suggestion in her voice.  “Nobody would believe how I brought it to you.”

“Magic.”

The woman’s nose wrinkled – a reflexive reaction, it seemed.  “No,” she said.  “Not magic.  Just…unbelievable.”

Vimes pocketed the book, his hands shaking a bit.  Unwrapping the cloth-wrapped object, he found himself holding an old-style Watch badge.

A _very_ old-style Watch badge. 

“He would have wanted you to have it,” the woman said softly.  “In a way, you have completed the work that he started.  Justice in the city.”

Vimes continued to stare.  This was – this was _Old Stoneface’s_ badge, the one that had vanished mysteriously when he had been executed.  

Here.  In his hands.

“Commander Vimes?”  the woman stood up, her eyes soft and gentle.  “May I go?”

Vimes didn’t bother to look up from the badge in his hands.  “Yeah,” he said hoarsely.  “Yeah.”

There was a rustling sound as the woman left the room.  Passing Constable Fittly, she handed over two dollars.  “For the traffic obstruction,” she murmured, slipping out of the Watch House.

Vimes carefully put the badge with the book in his pocket, and dashed quickly to the doorway.

“Miss!” he shouted.  “What’s your name?”  How could she possibly not know her own name?

The woman froze.  A flicker of light shifted strangely around her, almost as if the sun had paused for a moment directly above her.  Then, she turned, and Vimes’ voice caught in his throat.  The woman’s formerly dark eyes were bright like newly-polished gold.

“Thank you,” the woman said, her face shining.  “Commander Vimes, _thank you!_ ”

Vimes stared at her, nonplussed.  “For what?”

“My _name_!” cried the woman, beaming. (Literally.  She seemed to almost be glowing.)  “My name is Rose Tyler!”

There was a flash of golden-white light, and a sound like thunder.

The street was empty.

* * *

***

“…And then, like someone rising from the clouds of a sleep, she felt the deep, deep Time below her.  She sensed the breath of the downs and the distant roar of ancient, ancient seas trapped in millions of tiny shells.  She thought of Granny Aching, under the turf, becoming part of the chalk again, part of the land under the wave.  She felt as if huge wheels, of time and stars, were turning slowly around her.  She opened her eyes, and then, somewhere inside, opened her eyes again.  She heard the grass growing and the sound of worms below the turf.  She could feel the thousands of little lives around her, smell all the scents on the breeze, and see all the shades of the night.  The wheels of stars and years, of space and time, locked into place.  She knew exactly where she was, and who she was, and what she was.”

\- Terry Pratchett, _The Wee Free Men_ , (New York, NY: HarperCollins _Publishers_ , 2003) 240.

***

* * *

 

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger Warning: Implied abusive pedophilia, murder of children, and murder. 
> 
>  
> 
> Also, for aid in keeping track of time:  
> Century of the Fruitbat comes before Century of the Anchovy, and ends in Unseen Academicals. The Year of the Notional Serpent in the Century of the Fruitbat is canonical, and refers to the UU calendar year of 1985. I made up the Year of the Thinking Dingo, it refers to UU calendar year 1987.   
> I also made up the Year of the Infernal Goat, and the Century of the Woodchuck. Place them whenever you like, and feel free to borrow them, just credit me.


End file.
